


The Sharpness of Blooms

by RayShippouUchiha



Series: The Components of Construction [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Hanahaki AU, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Language of Flowers, Pining, Stand Alone, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-04-22 17:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14313498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayShippouUchiha/pseuds/RayShippouUchiha
Summary: Toni’s eleven when Howard hits her so hard she goes sprawling.  Laid out on the thick carpet of the den she can’t swallow down the blossoms that bud to life in her mouth fast enough.She brings her hand up to her face and when she pulls it back there’s a perfectly formed hemlock blossom in her palm.Toni stills, everything in her going quiet in that moment.Hemlock.You will be the death of me.Toni looks down at the blossom, at theomenshe’s birthed to life, and knows it for theprophecythat it is.He’s going to kill her one of these days.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's me again, ya girl. And I'm here with my take on the Hanahaki AU. I hope you guys like it and let me know what you think.
> 
> *Knowledge of _The Limitations of Wax _is not necessary but could be useful for this story*__
> 
> __All flower meanings have been worked into the context of the fic but if there's any confusion I have included the link to where I pulled my meanings._ _

[FLOWER MEANINGS](http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/flowers/pcd6.html)

~~~

Natasha Antonia Stark is born _wailing_ , a small destructive bundle of flailing limbs, thick black hair, and too bright eyes that almost kills Maria in the process.  
  
She screams and cries and it takes the nurses forever to calm her down, to get her settled and sleeping and above all else _quiet_.  
  
Even as a newborn there’s some part of her that knows she needs to be loud, knows she needs to scream _scream scream until her lungs feel fit to burst_ so that the whole _world_ can hear her, so that _no one_ can ignore her.  
  
She sets a precedent that night that follows her the rest of her life.  
  
~~~  
  
Maria holds her newborn daughter exactly twice.  Once directly after the birth, too drugged to really focus on what’s going on but blissed out enough with that new glow of motherhood to still want her child in her arms.  
  
The second time is the next day, freed from the harsh haze of sedatives and eager to look at her son.  
  
“A daughter.”  Maria’s face is a study in disappointment as she picks at the luxuriously soft blue blanket she’d specifically ordered and brought to the hospital for her son herself.  “Howard must be so displeased,” she sighs as she hands the girl over to the nurse and waves her away.  
  
Maria isn’t looking forward to having to get pregnant again to give Howard the son he so desperately wants but she’ll do it of course, as is her duty.  
  
As far as the girl is concerned, well at least they’ll be able to make sure she’ll marry well one day so it’s not a total lost cause.  
  
~~~  
  
Natasha is bundled into the lavish nursery that had been designed for the son Howard had wanted but not received.  It’s decorated in soft blues and golds, there’s a rocket ship mobile hanging over the crib and a thick padded chair in the corner.  A broad shoulder blond man salutes her with a smile from a glass covered poster on the wall.  
  
Howard and Maria hand the girl over to Jarvis and a wet nurse and go about their lives, back to SI and galas, back to scotch and spa days and other, more important things.  They only stop to deal with Natasha when there’s a photo shoot to be had or an opportunity to appear like a blissfully happy family for the press to be found.

There’s no one there to see the way pink camellia petals mix with her tears as they slide down her cheeks when her eyes well up, turning to dust before they ever hit the mattress.

There is no one there to see her longing spilling out around her as she cries and cries and _cries_.

~~~

Natasha’s first word is _Jarvis_.  
  
Her second is _listen_.  
  
Her third is _look_.  
  
Anything to break the quiet of the nursery she barely ever leaves now that her nurse is gone.  
  
She hasn’t seen either Maria or Howard at all for six months, only Jarvis and the blond man who smiles down at her from his place on her wall.   _But she’s too young to understand why that’s wrong, why that’s a problem._

After that she’s speaking in full sentences because it seems as if once she starts speaking Natasha _can’t stop_.

She grows quickly, runs almost as soon as she’s able to stand, and learns words by the bucket fulls almost faster than Jarvis can teach her.

But those three words are still the ones she says most often.

_Jarvis look.  Jarvis listen.  Jarvis. Jarvis.  Jarvis._

_Please someone look at/listen to me_.

~~~

If no one notices the flower petals that sometimes stick to her hair or her face, if no one says anything about the blossoms sometimes found littering her bed and her sheets?

Well it’s just one more thing that’s so easy to overlook

To see but not understand.

One more secret in a house built on top of secrets far more terrible than a few misplaced blooms.

~~~

The last time Natasha cries real tears she’s four.

Four with a broken circuit board in hand and broken crystal peppering her skin.

Jarvis cleans her up and rocks her back and forth, back and forth, as she cries and cries and _cries_.

She feels it when he sucks in a sharp breath, hand freezing on her back.

Natasha looks up, blinks helenium petals from her eyes instead of real tears, and watches the way his eyes go wide and almost frightened.

His hand shakes as he brings it up to press gentle fingertips against the corner of her mouth.

There’s a perfectly formed harebell blossom held between his fingers when he pulls his hand back.  And when Natasha looks down she sees that his lap is covered with a mix of helenium and harebell blossoms.

Her tears and grief spilled out across the both of them.

“Young miss,” Jarvis’ voice is quiet, urgent and almost frightened, “you must tell no one.  Sir and Ma’am … they must not find out. Please. You … you are _beautiful_ and there is nothing wrong with this but you must keep this secret, keep this safe.  Promise me, Natasha. You must promise.”

Fear and trust waring in her heart Natasha nods slowly.

“Okay Jarvis,” she tells him.

Because in this, as in all other things, she trusts Jarvis to keep her safe.

~~~

Natasha grows and grows and _grows_.

She builds a new circuit board and doesn’t stop there.  She devours every book on flowers she can get her hands on, memorizes the language and then keeps going.  She builds and learns and _builds some more_ and learns that there’s a heavy kind of price for all of it.

An engine here, a new computer there.  She finds a flaw in one of Howard’s new blueprints, and learns to deal with the feel of his knuckles cracking across the arc of her cheek.  Learns to accept the taste of blood and basil on her tongue.

She doesn’t cry, doesn't let the petals she can feel welling up in the corners of her eyes spill over.

She'd promised Jarvis after all.

So she swallows ever bloom she can taste down, one after the other, one part terrified of letting her secret be known and one part determined to _never_ give Howard the satisfaction of seeing her hurt.

Petunias cutting at the insides of her mouth, peonies and orange lilies burning on her tongue, Toni swallows down blossom after blossom.

She swallows down her resentment, her anger and her _hate_ , and she takes the name _Natasha_ and throws it to the side.

She becomes Toni and _she keeps going_.

She grows fast and hard and sharp, whittled down by Howard’s cruelty and bruising fists, by Maria’s cold dismissiveness.

The only softness she has is Jarvis’ care and the desperate, _aching_ sort of love she holds for him.  The sound of his voice, soft and soothing as he tells her the story of Icarus over and over again.  The taste of lavender in her mouth, her _love_ , her _devotion_ stifled as she bites back blossoms that would show her for what she is.

There’s also Aunt Peggy’s infrequent visits and her stories of Captain America and the Howling Commandos.  Toni grows used to the feel of coral honeysuckles on her tongue soon after that and keeps her _I love you_ crushed mercilessly between her teeth.

She dreams about flying, about falling, about Steve and Bucky catching her before she hits the ground.  Dreams of their gentle hearts and their bravery. Of the kindness that Aunt Peggy swears they’d each held within them.

And when she wakes she spits snowdrops into her cupped hands and wipes jasmine petals from her cheeks, her hope and attachment seeping out of her at every turn even though she _knows_ they’ll never be returned.

Because they’re _gone_ , Steve and Bucky, stolen by war and time years before she was ever born.

Still Toni takes each story to heart as she grows and vows that, even though she’s small right now, one day … one day she’ll be _mighty_ , just like they were.

Will become more than just the creature of razors and petals Howard and Maria have made her.  More than this flower mouthed child with blood in her teeth and feathers in her heart that the world has forced her to be.

~~~

Toni’s eleven when Howard hits her so hard she goes sprawling.  Laid out on the thick carpet of the den she can’t swallow down the blossoms that bud to life in her mouth fast enough.

She brings her hand up to her face and when she pulls it back there’s a perfectly formed hemlock blossom in her palm.

Toni stills, everything in her going quiet in that moment.

 _Hemlock_.

_You will be the death of me._

Toni looks down at the blossom, at the _omen_ she’s birthed to life, and knows it for the _prophecy_ that it is.

He’s going to kill her one of these days.

Is going to leave her bleeding out on the carpet one day, her life seeping away into the floors of this mansion that will _never_ be her home.

Toni clenches her fist around the blossom, plants her knuckles against the floor, and forces herself to stand.

If he’s going to kill her then he’s going to do it while he looks her in the _eyes_.

Toni refuses to die on the ground, cowering at his feet.

Refuses to die _small_.

~~~

By the time she’s hurtling towards thirteen and heading to MIT Toni has forgotten what life is like without the taste of blood and basil in her mouth.  Has forgotten what it’s like not to have peonies and orange lilies bunch together on the back of her tongue. Forgotten what it’s like not to taste hate and anger with every other breath.

The only sweetness in her life is the taste of lavender petals crushed between her teeth, her love and devotion for Jarvis, sitting sugar soft on her tongue even if keeping it secret stings in its own way.

Better to have that secret safe just as Jarvis had told her to than to speak it and have her small bit of hope torn from her.

Better to live with not knowing if Jarvis could ever love her back than to have him turn from her.

~~~

MIT is a flurry of lupine flowers sitting in her mouth and the crunch of dead leaves between her teeth, a whirlwind of imagination and sadness.

MIT helps her build, helps her create.

It does nothing to stem the sadness of being so far from Jarvis, of feeling so alone.

Toni wakes to sheets filled with belladonna and vincia flowers.

A bed made out of silence and sweet memories, two of the things that are all that gets her through the day.

~~~

Jarvis calls her regularly but it’s _not enough_.

Toni feels so selfish for thinking that way, for wanting more than what she has of him.

But it doesn’t stop her from crying, wiping pink camellia from her cheeks as her longing wells up and spills over.

She huddles in her dorm bed and cries and cries and _cries_.

She wakes up to piles of helenium petals, her tears scattered out around her like the cruelest kind of mockery.

~~~

Those first two years are hard.

And sometimes ... sometimes Toni is surprised that she manages to turn fifteen at all.

But then …

Then there’s _Rhodey_.

~~~

Rhodey is like springtime.

Is sun and rain and _warmth_.

Rhodey is Toni waking up to a bed full of alstroemeria and lavender, sheets filled with devotion and love, because he is like nothing she’s _ever_ known before.

Rhodey is Toni coming back from a mandatory break, sore and bruised with the taste of blood and basil back in her mouth, only to be folded gently, carefully, into his arms.

Rhodey is, “let me help you, baby girl.”

And Rhodey is hissed breaths and gentle hands against a black eye or bruised ribs.

Rhodey is, “ _fuck_ I’ll kill him.  Toni, I swear to _god_ I’ll kill him.”

Rhodey is strong, careful hands picking flower petals from her face, blossoms from her hair, smoothing blooms from her lap and saying, “look at you, I thought you were a genius.  Don’t you know there’s easier ways to get flowers?”

Rhodey is Toni laughing through her tears, forehead pressed against his shoulder as traveler’s joy blossoms spill from her mouth and down her cheeks because with him, with _Rhodey_ , she has found _rest_ and _safety_.

Rhodey is blood red chrysanthemums and deep red roses, is _love_ , is _I love you_ , is fist fulls of rose of sharons because Toni is _consumed by love for him_.

Rhodey is everything she’s ever wanted and nothing she’ll _ever_ manage to deserve.

~~~

Those next two years aren’t easy by any means.

But Toni has Jarvis, has her lavender love and devotion to him, and Rhodey who gives her roses and traveler’s joy, who gives her love and rest and safety.

And it’s more than Toni had _ever_ thought she’d have.

~~~

Toni is seventeen and her ribs are sore.  There are orange lilies curling on the back of her tongue, her hatred bitten back like always because she’s in the mansion where the secret must be kept.

The pain meds the doctor had given Jarvis for her dislocated shoulder make her head fuzzy but Jarvis had made sure she promised to take them.

“Rest young miss.”  Jarvis’ hand is cool against her forehead as he brushes back her hair.  “I’m afraid I’ll be driving Sir and Ma’am to the gala tonight but should you need anything Henrietta will be available until I return.”

“Jarvis?”  Toni turns her face just slightly into the calloused palm of Jarvis’ hand.  She loves him, loves him so so much even if she’s never been able to tell him.  Even if she has to keep it secret. She likes to think he knows though, because Jarvis _always_ knows.  Likes to think that his kindness means he feels the same way about her.

“Yes young miss?”

“Will you tell me the story of Icarus before you go?”  She needs that familiar comfort, the soothing rhythm of his voice telling her the story that has become theirs over the years.

“Of course young miss.”

~~~

“Young miss!  Young miss please wake up!”  Henrietta’s panicked voice and frantic knocking outside her locked bedroom door pulls Toni from her sleep.

“W-What’s wrong?”  Toni’s groggy, fuzzy headed and sore, but she blinks sleepy poppy petals from her eyes and forces herself to focus.  “Henrietta? What’s going on?”

“Oh young miss.”  Henrietta sounds close to tears even through the barrier of the door.  “There’s an officer waiting for you down stairs. T-there’s been an accident.”

Toni doesn’t know it yet but those are the words that destroy her entire world.

~~~

Hours later Rhodey finds her curled in a ball on the floor in the morgue viewing room, good arm raised above her as she clutches Jarvis’ limp hand in her own.

“Oh, blossom,” Rhodey sighs as he crouches down in the middle of the piles of dragon’s wort and marigolds that surround her, “you have to let go now.”

“He can’t leave,” Toni looks up at Rhodey from her bed of horror and grief, vision blurred from the constant stream of helenium petal tears that are sliding down her face.  “He can’t leave me alone, Rhodey. He _can’t_.”

“Oh, Toni,” Rhodey reaches out and smoothes her hair from her face, sweeps dried white roses and the death they herald from her cheeks.  “You’re not alone baby girl, you’ve got me okay? You’ll always have me.”

~~~

Toni makes it dry eyed and blossom-less through Howard and Maria’s funerals.

It’s watching Jarvis’ casket being lowered into the ground the next day that breaks her.

Toni _crumples_ and it’s only Rhodey’s strong arms that keep her from hitting the ground as he barks at Aunt Peggy to get everyone _out_.

Mourning bride flowers come rushing forth as Toni _screams_ , spilling out of her mouth and eyes in a wave, scattering on the ground in front of her as Toni shatters and sobs so violently she thinks she might be sick.

Because Jarvis is _dead_ and she feels as if she has _lost all_.

“Toni,” Rhodey’s voice is in her ear then, “Toni, blossom, _baby_ , you have to _breathe_.”

Toni _can’t_.  She’s choking on petals, breath stolen by the blossoms spilling out of her.

“Toni, goddamnit, _breathe_ ,” Rhodey’s holding her still, arms wrapped around her as he pulls her close, uncaring of the petals and blooms that spill out over his chest and hands.

When the dark rushes up to take her Toni welcomes it with open arms and a broken heart.

~~~

Rhodey doesn’t want to leave her days later but he has to.  But he sweeps her up in his arms and holds her for the longest time before he goes.

Same for Aunt Peggy who hasn’t looked at her quiet the same way since Jarvis’ funeral, something even sadder and softer in her eyes than ever before.

She hadn’t said anything about the flowers either, about the petals that Toni knows would have slowly faded into dust after Rhodey had carried her from the graveyard.

Toni thinks she’d love her more than ever, would spill coral honeysuckles like never before, if she could feel anything at all at the moment.

But … she _can’t_.

Toni is flowerless because her heart is _empty_.

~~~

Hollow eyed and swaying Toni collapses onto the ground in front of Jarvis’ gravestone, the box he’d left her in his will clutched in white knuckled hands.

When she finally brings herself to move, her hands shake when she pries the lid open.

Inside there’s a letter and a tape recorder.

 _‘Young miss,’_ the letter starts and Toni bites down on the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood and forces herself to keep reading.

The letter’s short but in it …

In it Jarvis gives to her the one thing they’d never been able to have before.  In death he gives her the gift that she’s pink camellia longed to have for as long as she can remember.

 _‘I love you, Toni,’_ the letter reads, _‘like the daughter I never had, like the daughter I couldn’t claim.  I love you.’_

And on the recorder is his voice, whispering their story, a record of their special sort of lullaby to keep her through the dark years ahead.

“I love you too,” Toni whispers as she curls around the recorder, letter clutched against her chest and marble hard against her spine.  “I love you too, Jarvis. Please. _Come back_.”

Curled there on top of the grave of the only father she’s ever known Toni feels as if something inside of her has broken, as if something has shifted and become unsettled.

She coughs, ragged and deep, and tries to swallow passed the burn that ignites in her throat.

It doesn’t work.

Instead she coughs again, harsh and sharp, and tastes blood as something unexpectedly heavy settles on the back of her tongue.

When Toni opens her mouth a single perfect cinquefoil blossom falls out to rest on her palm.  It’s perfect little gold petals screaming the truth at her.

 _Beloved child_.

Toni stares at it for a long moment before she slips it into the box Jarvis had left her.  She knows, somehow, that this blossom is different.

It, unlike the others before it, is permanent.  It, unlike the others, will never wilt, will never turn to dust.

It’s eternal.

Because Jarvis had loved her just as fiercely as Toni had loved him, as Toni loves him still.  As Toni will _always_ love him.

And now Toni will never have to swallow down petals for him again.

Because the truth has already bloomed upon her tongue.

 _Beloved child_.

That was what she was to him.

That was all she’d ever wanted to be.

But not like this.

 _Never like this_.


	2. Chapter 2

Toni, a few precious bits of Jarvis’ belongings in hand, shuts the mansion down.  She’ll be returning to MIT and she has no interests in having the mansion, this place where Howard had tormented her and Maria had abandoned her, left open.

Has no interest in walls that no longer hold more than a faint impression of Jarvis.

She sends the servants to other properties or to other positions or off with a massively generous severance package for their loyalty and their silence.

Whatever they prefer just as long as they get out of the mansion and keep their mouths _shut_.

~~~

By the time she makes it back to MIT and the safety of Rhodey’s arms Toni has taken to wearing the cinquefoil blossom in her hair.

She’d gone to a jeweler and had it mounted carefully onto a golden clip.

Now she will never be without it.

Now she can carry the weight of Jarvis’ love with her everywhere she goes.

A monument to all she had and all she has lost.

~~~

A few weeks into her return to MIT Rhodey sits her down and tells her softly, gently, that he’s leaving.

That the Air Force is calling.

That he can’t stay here with her anymore but that, no matter how far apart they are, no matter where life takes either one of them, he will always have her back.

They will always have each other no matter what.

Toni clings to him, red chrysanthemums and traveler’s joy mixing with marigolds and pink camellias.

The love and rest and _safety_ Rhodey always gives her mixing with the aching grief and longing that the thought of him leaving her behind fills her with.

She loves him and she doesn’t want him to go.

Toni loves Rhodey with a red chrysanthemum kind of love and she doesn’t want to lose him too.  Not to time or distance, not to the Air Force, not to anyone or anything.

She loves him so so much.

Toni feels the words budding up on her tongue but she bites them back for some reason, swallows them down like a secret.

She can’t say them.

Not yet.

~~~

DUM-E is born from her despair and grief over the idea of Rhodey leaving her.

She works on him tirelessly, relentlessly, brushing stray marigold and helenium blossoms to the side with impatient hands, pushing the proof of her grief and tears away like the worthless tokens they are.

And when she’s finished, when DUM-E whirls and beeps and knocks her coffee cup off of the table to shatter on the floor at her feet, she feels a surge of love blossom inside her chest.

Seconds later Toni spits a single tiny but utterly perfect wood sorrel bloom into the palm of her hand.  It’s delicate and oh so small but it’s a bright and cheerful yellow.

 _Maternal tenderness and joy_.

It’s fitting because, in so many ways, DUM-E is basically her _son_.

And even through her grief and her sadness Toni has loved him from the _moment_ she first dreamed about bringing him to life.

~~~

Toni gets the wood sorrel blossom mounted on a back and uses it to pierce her left ear high on the cartilage beside the ruby earrings Aunt Peggy once gave her.

She’ll wear her love for DUM-E on her body, just like she wears her connection to Jarvis in her hair.

~~~

Rhodey leaves.

Toni sees him off and then she goes back to her dorm, curls herself around DUM-E’s base, and _cries_.

DUM-E curls his one arm down around her as best he can and beeps solemnly.

He stays right there by her side even when globe amaranths and bundles of lichen begin to pile up around his base.

Because Toni has an unfading love for Rhodey but his absence cuts at her like a wound, leaves her feeling dejected and like she’s been trapped in an unwilling sort of solitude despite her best efforts.

~~~

A month later she builds U so that DUM-E will have company.

He’s smaller in size but a bit more advanced than DUM-E because she already had a framework to build on.  He’s still special though, unique in his own way just like his name says he is.

Just like with DUM-E she makes sure to tell him so, just like Jarvis had once told her.

Later Toni sends Rhodey a “It’s a Boy” card with a picture of U and DUM-E inside.

He calls her the next time he gets a chance and makes her promise not to take over the world with her robot sons while he’s gone.

Toni just laughs and adds another wood sorrel stud to her left ear.

It’s a soft white color this time and it reflects her love for her newest son perfectly.

~~~

Time passes, Toni grows and learns, is betrayed and slandered and pushed further and further towards the edge.

And always, always, she misses Jarvis.

Misses her _father_.

Some days when the walls press in on her Toni pulls the cinquefoil from her hair and curls herself around the eternal blossom.

She presses it carefully against her chest with hands that _shake_ and tries her best to _breathe_.

Sometimes it works.

Most times it doesn’t.

Regardless of which it is, Toni always wishes she could still spill petals and blossoms out for Jarvis in those moments.

Wishes she could give her grief, her love, her _agony_ , shape outside of her body.

But she _can’t_.

Because her love for Jarvis and the knowledge and acknowledgement of his love for her has stolen the blossoms from her where he’s concerned.

And it is the bitterest sort of irony.

~~~

Twenty-one comes for her with the force of a blow.

Only this time Toni makes sure she’s not the one on the other side of the backhand.

Twenty-one comes and Toni is tired and hurt but she refuses to show it.

Refuses to show such a weakness to anyone who isn’t her boys or Rhodey.

So, Toni turns twenty-one and the company is _hers_.

If anyone tries to take it from her they will have to pry it from her cold, dead hands.

~~~

Twenty-two comes and the press coins the name _The Red Queen_.

Toni just sneers, tilts her chin up a bit higher, swallows down anger filled furze and peony petals and bites back resentment filled petunias.

Instead she keeps pushing ever forward.

If they want to name her a queen then she will make them _kneel_.

~~~

Twenty-two comes and Toni gets _attacked_.

A man forces his way into her apartment, tries to _take_ from her like Stone had the day she’d met Rhodey back in MIT.

Only this time, just like then, Toni doesn’t end up being alone.

No this time DUM-E and U both come to her rescue.

Her bots, her boys, her _children_ , protect her, help her protect herself.

Falsifying the crime scene to protect them afterwards is so unbelievably easy.

~~~

Then, almost two days later, once it’s done and the police have came and went and Toni is alone with new nightmares and fears ready to tear her apart, Rhodey shows up.

Because of course he does.

Dirty, tired, and obviously ragged around the edges from running to her from halfway around the world, _he comes for her_.

Toni swallows down red chrysanthemums and traveler’s joy and clings to him.

The feel of his arms around her is as close to _home_ as she truly gets these days.

~~~

Two days later Rhodey has to leave again.

Toni finds herself standing in the airport as the most important person in her life prepares to walk away from her again.

Neither of them enjoy it but they also know it’s what they have to do.

Because they’re not the kind of people who stay, not in these circumstances.

“Stay safe Toni.”  Rhodey looks anguished, looks truly torn for the first between his duty and his desire to stay and protect her.  “I-I need to know you’re safe here. I need to know you’re gonna be here waiting for me when I get back. You and the kids.”  
  
“I don’t like to lie to you Rhodey.”  Toni admits because she lies to basically everyone, including herself occasionally, and Rhodey and Aunt Peggy are two of the only exceptions.  “I can’t promise to stay safe anymore than you can. But I can promise to try.”  
  
“I’ll take what I can get.”  Rhodey presses another kiss to her forehead, straightens up, and takes a step back.  “I’ll call you as soon as I can baby girl.”  
  
He gives her a small salute and turns to walk away.  
  
He takes a handful of steps and then Toni’s moving almost before she realizes she’s made the decision to.  She darts forward quickly, reaches out and grabs his hand. He jerks to a stop and swings around to look at her.  Surprise and curiosity are heavy on his face because in all the years they’ve been doing this she’s never stopped him before.  
  
“I love you.”  Toni blurts out and it hurts just a bit when his eyes go wide with shock because she never really says the words.  She shows him in as many ways as she can think to, but saying it is more his thing than hers. She’s always bitten back the words, swallowed down the taste of blossoms on her tongue for one reason or another.  She’s suddenly desperate to say them to him now though, to make sure he _knows_.  She’d made a mistake with Jarvis and it’s one she never wants to make with Rhodey.  Not ever. “I love you _so much_ Rhodey.  You’re, you’re my best friend, my only friend that I didn’t build myself, and you come when I need you and you, you … I just love you okay?”  
  
“ _Oh Toni_.”  Rhodey’s there in the next second, strong arms wrapped around her again as he cradles her close and rocks them both just slightly back and forth.  “Oh baby girl I love you too.”  
  
To her horror Toni feels tears well up in her eyes, feels petals and blossoms begin to build up in the corners, and she has to blink rapidly to force them down.

But there’s nothing she can do about the blossoms she can feel forming on her tongue.  Blooms she knows she can’t swallow down because they sit heavy and _important_ in her mouth.  
  
“Hey.”  Rhodey pulls back and she can see the way his eyes are slightly damp.  He reaches up and brushes his thumb lightly across the high arch of her cheek.  They both know there’s a fading bruise there, hidden beneath a heavy layer of foundation that she doesn’t normally wear every day.  “It’s you and me little girl. Through thick and thin, no matter what okay?”

Toni pulls back just enough so that she can bring her hands up to her face.  She lets the flowers she can feel in her mouth spill out into her cupped palms but doesn’t dare look down at them.

Instead she presses them against her chest and looks up at Rhodey who is staring down at her with so much naked affection and devotion that Toni feels as if her chest will crack open down the middle.

He is beautiful and _home_ and Toni will _never_ deserve him.  Will never deserve the red chrysanthemum love and the safety and rest of the traveler’s joys he gives her as easily as breathing.  
  
“You mean that?”  There’s so much naked vulnerability in her voice in that moment that Toni hates herself for it.

Rhodey’s face just goes soft and slightly sad at the sound of it.  
  
“Bottom of my heart.”  There’s a small, fond smile curling up the corners of his mouth.  “I’m with you Tones. It’s you and me, till the day we die. Got it?”  
  
“Yeah Rhodey.”  Toni smiles. She’s so, so grateful for him.  “Till the day we die.”

And then she opens her hands and shows him just what has blossomed on her tongue, bloomed out of their love for one another.

~~~

Rhodey leaves her.

But this time when he goes he goes with a single perfect crimson phlox flower tucked into his jacket.

Toni takes the other and has it mounted on the same clip as the cinquefoil.

And then she tucks it into her hair and keeps it there no matter what.

Because it’s a symbol of their connection, of the love they share between them.

 _Our souls are united_ , the blossoms scream to the world in a language so few seem to understand.

Twin blossoms birthed from Toni’s heart, eternal and unwiliting, and just for the two of them.

Soulmates in all of the ways that matter.

~~~

The press still calls her ridiculous nicknames like _The Red Queen_ or _The Scarlet Stark Heiress_.

A part of Toni can’t help but wonder if the world will ever stop trying to punish her for being what they made her.

The rest of her turns her attention towards another invention, another bomb, another goal and resolutely doesn’t care.

The blossoms come less often because true emotions seem to only really touch her when she’s with the bots or safe in Rhodey’s arms these days.

Or when she dreams of Steve and Bucky and wakes wrapped up in sheets filled with snowdrops and jasmine petals, her hope and attachment seeping out of her whenever her guard is down.

But again, they’re both long gone, stolen by time and circumstances long before she was ever born.

Toni only has them in her dreams.

It’s not enough.

Her dissatisfaction and the scabious flowers she spits up sometimes show her for the greedy creature that she is because she has no right to be bitter over this unfortunate love she’s found herself in.

But Toni can’t help it.

Without Rhodey by her side, with Aunt Peggy so far away and Jarvis gone for so long now, Toni just feels … _empty_.

The unfortunate love she has for Steve and Bucky ends up being a balm of sorts for her because at least it makes her feel something.

Plus it is, in its own way, a _safe_ sort of love for her.

Tragedy tinged or not, a yellow tulip sort of hopeless love or not, it is a love that can never hurt her more than it already does.

Toni is free to let all of the yellow acacia she can muster spill from her.

Because in this one case her secret love can never be used against her.

~~~

An idea takes root inside of Toni and she spits impatient yellow balsam petals into her hands every time she even thinks about it.

Eventually she gives in though.

She swallows down longing filled pink camellias and turns her attention towards her newest project.

~~~

JARVIS is perfect.

Is bright and brilliant and beautiful.

But, unlike DUM-E and U, JARVIS does not give Toni another wood sorrell to add to her collection.

Instead he gives her _amaranth_.

Unfading love.

Faith.

Immortality.

With a single blossom JARVIS gives Toni something she’s only found in Rhodey before, something that was stolen from her and Jarvis before they ever had a chance to really find it together.

JARVIS gives her amaranth.

JARVIS gives her a promise of _forever_.

Toni weaves the sprigs together and has them set in thick resin.

She wears the bracelet around her left wrist so that it’s as close to her heart as possible.

Right where JARVIS belongs.

~~~

With JARVIS’ help Toni pulls Happy Hogan into her world and her life.

He and Rhodey circle each other like territorial dogs for a bit before they settle in and bond with one another over commiserating about the things she gets up to.

Six months in and Toni is hardly even surprised when she’s able to take the things Happy hands her without any issues.

So when a single unwilting affectionate pear blossom forms for him Toni barely even pauses before she spits it out, has it mounted on a chain, and gifts it to him.

Happy takes the necklace, curious about her choice of gift but still openly pleased to have received it.

He wears the necklace everyday, tucked down beneath his shirt as if he understands its importance, its significance, despite having never actually seen Toni’s … _affliction_.

Everytime Toni sees even a hint of it she can’t help but smile just a bit.

~~~

Butterfingers comes next, her fiery, hot tempered boy.

The wood sorrel she spits for him is flame red and just as vibrant.

~~~

Now that Toni’s proven that there is nothing even remotely _inferior_ about her, now that she’s proven to be capable of wrecking the curve for everyone else and then keep pushing even further forward, the press decides it’s time to give her yet another new name.

They call her _The Merchant of Death_.

And Toni?

Toni wears the title with pride.

And if she spits nightshade into the bottom of her shower …

Well her bitter truths turn to ash and wash away easily enough after a few moments.

~~~

Pepper Potts is a revelation of efficiency, of goodness and a clever sort of sweetness that hides a spine of pure steel.

Toni adores her.

And, just like with Happy, despite the secrets Toni still keeps from both of them, a flower blossoms for Pepper quickly enough.

It’s as if they come easier now somehow after she’d bloomed twin blossoms for her and Rhodey.

As if saying it once to someone alive and well and who loved her back made it easier to accept that kind of affection in other places too.

So she sets the blossom onto a dainty golden comb and gives it to Pepper.

Pepper’s eyes go wide and soft and her fingers are gentle and almost awestruck when she lifts the comb up out of the box Toni placed it in.

Toni knows that, just like Happy, Pepper doesn’t know the true meaning of the flower Toni gives her, doesn’t know about Toni’s … peculiarity.

But it doesn’t seem to matter.

Pepper wears the comb every single day, the blossom that describes their bond always fresh and beautiful against the fiery strands of her hair.

Yellow jasmine.

Because Pepper is, in Toni’s eyes, the epitome of both modesty and grace.  Is a woman of pure elegance.

She is so very lucky to have met her.

~~~

Life pushes forward as it always does.

Toni meets it head on as she always does.

And then …

~~~

Toni’s twenty-six and she owns the world.  
  
Twenty-six and still rising higher and higher.  
  
Twenty-six and she has a makeshift family all her own.  
  
Twenty-six and the press still calls her _The Red Queen_ and _The Merchant of Death_ like the titles are interchangeable.  Pepper still won’t let her put them on a business card.  
  
Twenty-six and building more and more.  
  
Twenty-six and amazed at the wanton destruction of her own mind.  
  
Twenty-six and … _tired_.  
  
Twenty-six and waiting impatiently to meet the new military liaison that’s being assigned to her.  
  
Twenty-six and laughing, breathless and happy, when Rhodey walks in, Lt. Colonel rank shining on his uniform, and a grin on his face.  
  
Twenty-six and screaming, voice breaking in rage and anguish as she claws at her own hair while JARVIS calls for her desperately because Aunt Peggy is … _Aunt Peggy doesn’t_ …  
  
Aunt Peggy didn’t recognize her when she dropped in to see her.  
  
_'Alzheimer’s'_ , Peggy’s oldest boy says, as the niece who never liked Toni glares at her from the background.  Toni takes it all in with a blank face and a frozen heart. _Alzheimer's_.  It reverberates inside of her head like a gunshot until even _thinking_ the word makes her want to scream.  
  
Toni is twenty-six and resigned to watching the only mother she’s ever had fade away in bits and pieces, her memory eaten away moment by moment over time.  
  
A slow, creeping death of the mind.

~~~

She goes off the rails for a bit, goes out and gets drunk and makes Happy ride herd on her.  The press has a field day but Toni can’t bring herself to care about the new headlines and videos that pop up.  Instead she comes home and gets drunk again in her living room only to have Pepper show up to pull the bottle out of her hand and hug her close.  
  
She buries herself in the lab for almost two months, barely eats, barely sleeps.  Her mind is a whirl of colors and sounds and maddening equations that she both loves and hates.  She pushed through blossoms and petals she doesn’t even really see, just shoves them to the side and coughs them up and leaves them to rot away into ashes without a second glance.  
  
The bots are scared.  JARVIS is worried. Happy keeps coming to the door and knocking, begging for her to let him in.  
  
Rhodey is the one with the override code though so he gets inside first.  He shakes her hard, only once, and then clutches her close to his chest.  
  
“I’m so sorry baby.”  He whispers into her temple.  “I’m so sorry you’re losing her this way.  It hurts and it’s not fair, I know it isn’t.  But Tones you got to pull yourself together. You gotta get through this okay?  Cause you still have me alright? You’ve still got all of us here waiting for you on the other side of this hurt.  I’m with you sweetheart. You remember that right?” Rhodey grabs one of her hands and raises it up so she can feel the necklace chain that holds his half of their twin blooms.  A reminder of what they are to each other. “I’m with you till the day we die. So you can’t leave me yet, not like this.”  
  
Clutching at Rhodey’s shirt with hands bloody from her latest careless stint in the workshop, Toni cries.

He holds her there, presses her against his chest, and lets her helenium tears flow over the both of them as she sobs.

Holds her there and lets her fill both of their laps with marigolds and dead leaves mixed with meadowsweet.

Her grief and despair flowing out over the both of them, mixing with the agonizing ache of her sadness and the burning rage of her own uselessness.

Because Toni can fix a lot of things.

But Aunt Peggy’s brain, her memory, isn’t one of them.

It should be.

But it isn’t.

For all of her genius, for all of her power and influence, Toni’s unable to save the closest thing she’s ever had to a mother.

Just like she couldn’t save Jarvis.

~~~

Toni pulls herself together slowly, stitches herself together piece by bloody piece as she swallows down blossom after blossom, grief filled marigolds a long familiar taste on the back of her tongue.  
  
She pays for a private nurse for Aunt Peggy, refuses to take no for an answer when the family protests.  She might not be close to any of them, some of them might resent the relationship she had with Aunt Peggy because they’re not actually related, but Toni doesn’t care.  
  
Aunt Peggy was, is, one of her very few precious people and Toni takes care of what is hers.  
  
It still hurts though every time she goes to see her and Aunt Peggy has those moments where she doesn’t remember something she should.  Where she doesn’t always remember Toni.  
  
“I love you.”  Toni whispers against the worn skin of Aunt Peggy’s hand as blooms crawl up her throat and settle heavy on her tongue.  “I love you so much.”  
  
“I love you too ducky.”  Aunt Peggy presses a kiss against her temple, a soft, sad light in her eyes.  She knows what’s wrong with her, knows that she’s going to continue to fade over time.  “I’ll always love you Toni, even when I don’t know you. A part of me will always love you.”

 _God_ it still hurts.

Even the lengths of virgin’s bower that Toni spits out a few seconds later do nothing to ease the ache.

Not even the way Aunt Peggy smiles at her, soft and loving, when Toni weaves the vines together into a circlet and then sets them on her head, dulls the agony.

Toni crowns Aunt Peggy in her love, in the love of a daughter for her mother, and for the second time in her life it feels as if she’s too late.

Just like with Jarvis Toni has waited too long.

~~~

Twenty-seven comes for her like a silent assassin.

Slides into her life with an Aunt Peggy who only remembers her on every other visit or so.

And it’s only the way the crown of virgin’s bower vines never leaves the table by her Aunt Peggy’s bed that helps Toni hold onto her calm with desperate hands.

And even if Toni has no more blossoms for Aunt Peggy, even if the petals are gone, it still _hurts_.

But then …

 _Afghanistan_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://rayshippouuchiha.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> http://rayshippouuchiha.tumblr.com/


End file.
